Shoal
by saltycrow
Summary: Oh, how poetic it was, that her ultimate betrayal would be seeing to his death.


**AN: So this is basically 3.09. as I want to see it. This was my way of coming to terms with how the show decided to end things with them. And even at the expense of seeming like the world's biggest cliché, I added that Shakespeare quote in the beginning, because I kept thinking about it while I wrote this.**

 _"These violent delights have violent ends_

 _And in their triump die, like fire and powder_

 _Which, as they kiss, consume"_

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Charles Vane was a man who never lied. Eleanor Guthrie, however, was a woman who could not stop doing so. She herself did not recognize how much she lied, for most of the lies she told, she told to herself. Now all of those lies had come to surface. They would not drown like she willed them to, not anymore. He stripped them off her, tore them apart like a flimsy piece of fabric. It took him no effort. With just a small gentle breeze he tore down her walls. He had neatly laid down all the lies she had told to herself, so that she could examine every single one of them and notice that all of those lies were about Charles Vane in one way or other. Those lies were sacred for her, in a way. They were what held her together, kept her focused on her goals. And when a person tries to take away something as crucially important as lies were for Eleanor Guthrie, there is bound to be a reaction. A violent push back, to keep what is sacred intact, unharmed. And yet the damage had already been done.

 _You're an animal,_ she had told him just minutes ago. But what kind of an animal had the capacity to arouse this kind of emotion in her, she wondered. As she walked away from him, away from her lies, she felt the blood drip from her knuckles to the sand below her feet. The stinging in them a physical reminder of what she had just done. Yet her thoughts were not on the brutality she had just inflicted, no it was on the words of the shackled man, the words that would not leave her.

Charles Vane indeed never lied, and Eleanor Guthrie could not stop doing so. This moment was no different. No matter how many holes he had punctured to her lies, she still fought back. _He was a liar,_ is what she told herself. It was all lies, her father had not betrayed her, he had not. Those words were just a dying man's attempt to take someone down with him. And she refused to go down.

And yet... he did not seem to give a fuck about the fact that he was dying.

* * *

What hurt the most were not her fists, nor his bleeding face. It was that goddamn piece of paper sitting on the table. That was the true knife in his back. A promise he would be executed in peace. _Does she not know me at all?_ had been his first thought when she had read it and expected him to sign it. She was truly fucked up if she ever thought he would agree to such a thing. She must have forgotten everything she knew about him. He was not afraid of death, and a public death made no difference to him, she should have known that. Or she had chosen to push all that back and treat him like any other man, afraid of death.

Her actions here today did not surprise him at all. The fists in his face he had even expected. The words he had chosen were nothing but the truth, but Eleanor Guthrie could do nothing better than hold on to her lies. She would do absolutely anything to hold on to those. She'd do anything to tell herself he was a liar, and his words deceptive.

It was truly remarkable how fucked up that woman was. Yet, she was the only woman he could have ever loved. And if that did not tell something about Charles Vane as well, then nothing did. They were two souls adrift at the sea, who had briefly found each other, only to be torn apart for the same reasons they had come together. All that he loved about her, he also hated. He knew all her insecurities, her need of acceptance, and her way of achieving it through means of controlling things around her. He had been the one thing she could not control. When she was with him, her walls crumbled and he loved seeing nothing more. Yet that crumbling was the exact reason he was sitting here now, wounded in his cell, waiting for death.

And he knew he'd die, oh he was sure of it. Oh, how poetic it was, that her ultimate betrayal would be seeing to his death. A load raspy laughter escaped his throat. Something was always bound to break with them. She would see to his death for the reason she had abused him just now. For the sake that she could not face her own lies, could not face the truth that only his being represented. That he would die by her hands seemed tragic, but he could not come to regret it, not truly. Everything in his life had lead up to this moment. It had been a miracle he had survived his childhood, yet he had not perished, against all odds. He had thrived in this world of violence and betrayal, and death had always been a part of it. The death he had anticipated was not exactly like the one he was going to have, yet it was no worse, nor better. Charles Vane was a man who spat on the face of death, and seeing the only thing he had ever loved while he did so seemed good somehow. No matter how much he hated her, he also loved her. No matter than she was about to put him to death like the animal she had called him to be. Still, he loved her. Yes, she was truly fucked up, but so was he. His incapability to stop loving her proved it.

A laughter escaped his lips one more time, as he imagined how she would crumble after she killed him. For she would, he was sure of it. His death would not make her get rid of him, oh no, he would always be there, with her, _within her._ What a fucking tragic love story they were, worthy of a novel, truly.

* * *

Her face was stone, unmoving, showing nothing to the outside world. And she did not feel anything. Not a thing while she watched them loop the noose around his neck, nothing when he spoke, cursed like a pirate and defiantly took the steps to his own death, like the man he was and always had been. _His death looked exactly like him_ , was the only thought in her mind. She did not regret this, it was what was meant to be, he was meant to die and she was meant to realize her ambitions, all she had dreamed this place would be, everything it could be without men like him. No, she did not regret this, she felt nothing, especially no regret. Nothing went through her mind as she watched, nothing as she walked away, nothing, nothing nothing. Nothing until she closed the door firmly behind her. Then it was everything.

 _His love is sacred and mine is just an inconvenient obstacle to your ambitions. The life cycle of your affections A man you love who speaks the truth shunted aside in favor of the next who will tell you whatever you want to hear._ His words rang in her head, repeating themselves over and over again, while memories invaded her head. It was Ned Lowe's severed head, it was _him_ behaving himself in that meeting, smoking his cigar and looking at her like there was no one else in the world. His look when she took away his men and ship, his touch on her skin, always. The first kiss they had shared when she was sixteen. The first time in his bed. The look he gave her when she turned the key in the lock. And finally the look he gave her when he stepped to his death. Years and years' worth of memories. All passing through her head, not leaving her be, reminding her of everything, of _him._

She could not breathe. She tried to drew breath but it was quick and shallow and no air seemed to reach her lungs. Her chest ached and she felt like she was dying. And perhaps she truly was, for she had just killed a part of herself. No matter how much she hated to admit it. It hit her in the chest with the force of one thousand men. The realization of what he had meant to her. And what she had done to keep holding on to her lies. She had killed the man she had loved to hold on to those lies. For suddenly it was clear as day to her, that the words he had spoken in his cell were true, her father had done all the things he claimed, for Charles Vane was not a liar, and she had always been one. The lies she had been holding on to slipped away through her fingers like sand. It was impossible to hold on anymore. And as they slipped away, there was nothing much left of her, barely a shell of the woman she had been was lying on the floor.

His death made her crumble, fall into pieces that had been held together before with her lies, but also with her love of him. He had always been there, the one constant in her life, someone her equal. And as she killed him, she also killed herself. Tragedy was what they had been set up for, and tragedy is what she had made sure they had. What was left of them was his body, and the pieces of her, so lifeless she might have been a corpse as well. This was what she had forced on herself,on him, and now, what did she have left? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

 **AN; so yeah, now i feel i have written most of the vaneeleanor stuff i wanted to write. only have one idea at the back of my mind but also it would be a longer fic, and I don't really have the time now, and also not sure if anyone is interested in reading a modern au vane x eleanor. but yeah, so wrapping up my writing now for a while at least**


End file.
